Time for another post and once again and this time we hit up Jingan Temple and Yuyuan Gardens!
Here we are, in Shanghai, enjoying its splendors. Its sights, its smells and its glory! I had this week off from work due to a Chinese National Holiday but it’s been a nice week.
The holiday started off with us spending a couple of nights at the Hyatt on the Bund (the area here in Shanghai that looks extremely European and runs along the Huangpu River). That weekend, we had some Dongbei food (northern Chinese cuisine) and it’s pretty fantastic…not to mention cheap. Had we been Norse Gods, I could have said the mead flowed freely at said meal, but alas we are not the keepers of the heavens so I won’t say it….though certain other amber liquids were offered quite freely.
We also managed to see the Yuyuan Gardens (which date back to the mid-16th Century under the Ming Dynasty). Aside from the hordes of not so tranquil tour groups (I’m looking at you Russian people…and maybe you too Frenchies…), the gardens themselves were beautiful and tranquil, with Koi gracefully gliding under the streams and history becoming one with the present.
Jing’an Temple. This is another glorious, kind of (not really) ancient masterpiece in the heart of Shanghai. This Buddhist temple is now defunct, in that there no longer any monks there. It serves exclusively as a tourist attraction, and a place for locals to go a pray. Yet it is exquisite in its beauty and unlike Yuyuan Gardens, was.peaceful in the extreme. This is the kind of place one goes to disappear from people despite your constantly being surrounded there.
There were other foods and things seen, but perhaps those will come in my next blog as they are not so worth writing about as these. Let us know what you think about Jingan Temple and Yuyuan Gardens!